


From the Desk Of...

by sara_wolfe



Series: Tumblr Ficlets [4]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Smallville, Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Reveal, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 03:37:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14323725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sara_wolfe/pseuds/sara_wolfe
Summary: Misc. fics in the Supergirl and Smallville universes about Kara Danvers, Lois Lane, Clark Kent, and all the people who love them.





	1. Lena & Kara - identity reveal

As thunder crashed outside her penthouse window, Lena was even more grateful that she’d decided to leave work early and work from home for the rest of the night. Barely early evening and the sky was already as dark as midnight, storm clouds hanging heavy over the city. Rain lashed her windows in torrential sheets and lightning lit the sky in jagged bolts. It was exactly the kind of storm she’d loved as a kid, curling up in her window seat with a blanket wrapped snugly around her shoulders as she watched nature’s fury rip across the sky. In fact, she was half-tempted to just leave the rest of her work for the morning and curl up on the sofa to watch the storm.

_‘Two more reports,’_ Lena promised herself, reluctantly turning her attention back to the paperwork on her desk. _‘Two more reports, and then I can take a break.’_

But, even with her forced focus, Lena couldn’t ignore the deafening crash from outside her balcony window a few minutes later. Jerking up from her desk, she ran out into the living room. There was no way that had been merely thunder, but maybe a bird had crashed into the window or something-

Throwing open her balcony doors, she stared in shock at the crumpled form of Kara Danvers lying in a heap on the wet concrete. For a moment she was frozen as she looked down at Kara, trying to figure out how Kara could have ended up on her balcony fifteen stories in the air, but then she darted out into the rain and dropped to Kara’s side. She put a hand on the other woman’s shoulder, gently turning her on her back. And her second shock of the night came with the sight of the hole burned in the front of Kara’s sweater - and Supergirl’s emblem clearly visible underneath.

_‘Well that explains how she got up here,’_ was Lena’s only thought, hysterical laughter threatening to burst out of her throat as she stared down at her best friend. At her best friend who was apparently Supergirl.

Then, common sense took over and Lena hooked her hands under Kara’s shoulders, dragging the unconscious woman out of the rain and into the living room. She pulled Kara over to the couch, where a burst of adrenaline helped her heave Kara up onto the cushions. Terrifyingly, Kara didn’t even flinch at all the rough movement. This wasn’t good; anything that could render the Girl of Steel unconscious, much less keep her that way for so long, had to be bad news. Lena turned on the lamp beside the couch, angling the shade so that the light fell directly on Kara’s face and shoulders. And in the brighter light she could see exactly what was keeping Kara unconscious: tiny flecks of green glowed ominously across Kara’s face and shoulders, flecks that were embedded deeply enough into her skin that they didn’t move when Lena rubbed her fingers across Kara’s cheek.

There was only one thing that could disperse krytonite like that, and her brother was to blame. He’d created shotgun shells loaded with kryptonite, that would disperse the meteorite fragments like buckshot, and he’d been halfway to convincing the Metropolis police force to carry the rounds with them at all times in case Superman ever went rogue and needed to be stopped. After his arrest, Lena had been sure that all of Lex’s kryptonite weapons had been confiscated and safely destroyed, but apparently some of them had fallen into the wrong hands. The hands of someone who had clearly figured out that Kara was Supergirl.

But that was something to worry about after Kara was safe. Right now she had hundreds, possibly thousands, of tiny Kryptonite fragments embedded in her skin. And if Lena didn’t get them out, Kara could die.

“I’m going to fix this,” Lena whispered, brushing a wet lock of hair away from Kara’s forehead. “I promise.”

In her bathroom, Lena grabbed a pair of tweezers, some rubbing alcohol, and her fluffiest towels. And from her bedroom, she grabbed a small, lead keepsake box Lex had given her - clearly hoping that she would follow in his Super-hating footsteps; wouldn’t he just burn to see her now? - and a spare set of flannel pajamas from her dresser. Then she hurried back out to where Kara was still unconscious on the couch. Lena had tried to be fast, but even in the minute she’d been gone, it was clear that Kara was getting worse. She was even paler than when Lena had brought her inside, her skin clammy to the touch in a way that just being outside couldn’t account for. Her breath wheezed alarmingly in her chest.

Kara was running out of time.

Lena tucked one of the towels under Kara’s head and shoulders, putting the others nearby for later. Splashing alcohol over the tweezers - and not giving a damn if it ruined her hardwood floors - Lena unflinchingly dug the tweezers into Kara’s exposed shoulder to dig out a kryptonite fragment. Piece by piece, dropping each of them into the lead box, she went over every inch of exposed skin meticulously. By the time she was finished, she had almost a thousand tiny fragments in the box.

She closed the box with a definitive click and Kara’s face almost immediately started regaining some of its lost color. Lena grabbed the rest of the towels from the floor beside her, wrapping them securely around Kara, and then following suit with the crocheted blanket she kept on the back of the couch. When Kara was stronger, she’d move her into a bedroom and get her into some clothes that weren’t soaking wet and completely destroyed, but this was the best way to keep her warm until she started to wake up.

As if she’d heard Lena’s thoughts, Kara started to stir. Her eyes fluttered open for a moment, focusing weakly on Lena. She opened her mouth, but she was still clearly too weak to say anything. Lena squeezed her hand, reassuringly.

“You’re okay,” she soothed, gently. “You’re gonna be okay, Kara, I promise.”

Kara’s eyes slipped shut a second later as she fell unconscious again. Lena wasn’t even sure if Kara had understand anything she’d just said. But she settled more comfortably against the couch, twining her fingers around Kara’s. She was willing to sit there as long as it took.


	2. Tess & Oliver - in the hospital

“Did you know that a person can lose three to four pints of blood and still survive?” Tess asked. “Compared to how much blood we’re supposed to have in our bodies, that’s…a lot of blood.” Tess shook her head. “So, of course you had to be an overachiever, didn’t you?”

There was no answer from the unconscious man in the hospital bed, and for some reason, that just made Tess even angrier. 

“You almost died, Oliver,” she ranted, glaring at him like she could force him away with the sheer power of her will, alone. “You were bleeding out in that alley, and you could have died, and we never would have known because you took out your fucking tracker like an idiot!”

Still no answer, and Tess was starting to remember another universe, another Oliver Queen, another bedside vigil next to a hero who was too stubborn to know when he needed to ask for help. 

“I would have backed you up, you idiot,” she told him. “I would have been with you in that alley, fighting beside you. And then maybe you wouldn’t be lying here right now.”

Part of her was expecting Oliver to wake up just to argue with her, but he remained stupidly, stubbornly unconscious. 

“You need to wake up so I can be mad at you properly,” Tess said. “There’s no point in yelling at you if you’re not awake to hear it.” Sighing heavily, she dragged her hands through her hair, exhaustion overwhelming her. “Please wake up, Oliver.”


	3. Kara/Lena - pillow fort

“Kara?” 

Lena stepped cautiously into the penthouse, wary of whatever might be waiting to greet her. Her girlfriend’s text of, _‘I took an early day from work,’_ had been innocuous enough, but Lena was skilled at reading between the lines and knowing when something was wrong.

“Kara?” she tried, again.

“Over here,” came the slightly muffled answer. 

Lena followed the sound of Kara’s voice to the living room, where she was greeted with the couch cushions stacked on the floor, with what seemed to be every pillow and blanket in the house piled on top. Lena blinked at the monstrosity for a moment before approaching. 

“Kara, are you stuck?”

A moment of silence, and then in a dry tone, “Yes, the mighty Supergirl is trapped under some couch cushions.” Poking her head out of a gap in the structure that Lena hadn’t even noticed, Kara added, “It’s a pillow fort. You want to come in?”

“Is it safe?” Lena asked, but dropped to her knees without waiting for an answer and crawled through the opening Kara had made for her. 

“I will have you know that I have a degree in pillow fort engineering,” Kara told her, solemnly. She let the blanket fall shut behind Lena, curling back into the nest she’d made out of a heap of pillows. “I used to make these all the time when I was a kid.”

“Yeah?” Lena asked, kicking off her shoes and curling up behind Kara so that she could wrap her arms around her girlfriend. “Tell me more?”

“It was mostly when I first came here after Krypton,” Kara said, after a few moments. “Everything was so different, so big, so overwhelming, and it just got too much sometimes. So, one day, Alex pulled all the cushions off the couch and made me a fort. We crawled inside and she told me to close my eyes and just pick one thing to listen to, so that I wasn’t listening to everything. And it was dark, and it was quiet, and it was safe. And whenever I needed to feel safe, again, I’d pull all the cushions off the couch and make a fort. And today sucked at work, and at the DEO, and I just figured-”

“Pillow forts weren’t allowed in the Luthor household,” Lena confided in her, after Kara had fallen silent. “But there was this little crawl space in my bedroom, and I had my favorite blanket in there, and my books, and I’d sneak snacks from the kitchen. Our father didn’t know, but Lex did, and sometimes he’d lie to our father so that I could have a little more time to myself.”

“He sounds like a good brother,” Kara said, and Lena smiled, wistfully. 

“He was,” she said, quietly. Combing her fingers idly through Kara’s hair, she added, “Thank you for sharing your pillow fort with me.”

“Well, it’s no fun by myself,” Kara told her. “And thank you for coming home to be with me. You didn’t have to.”

“I know,” Lena said, “but I wanted to. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Kara murmured.


	4. Tess - lost puppy

It was cold and wet as Tess slogged her way up the sidewalk to the Daily Planet. She pulled her coat collar up higher around her neck, ducking her head down inside the coat as much as possible to hide from the rain. Of all the days for her taxi to have a flat tire five blocks away from work…

She’d just passed an alleyway when a high, thin yelp caught the edge of her hearing. She almost passed it by - she’d lived long enough to know the dangers lurking in the dark - but then she heard the sound again, all too familiar in its pain and fear, and she couldn’t ignore whatever was making that noise. 

Fishing her pepper spray out of her purse, Tess moved slowly into the alley toward the persistent yelping sound. Louder at the back of the alley, Tess finally located the sound coming from a tattered cardboard box, half caved in from the weight of the driving rain. As she nudged open one of the soggy flaps, she looked down to see a pair of brown eyes staring up at her. 

Tess dropped the pepper spray back in her purse as she stared down at the puppy. The puppy, now that it had her attention, was unsuccessfully trying to climb up the sides of the box. Tess watched it struggle for a few seconds before huffing a sigh and crouching down to scoop the puppy up. 

Tiny, covered in mud, and barely a pound even soaking wet, the puppy stared at her from the cradle of her cupped hands. Then it slumped down in her hands, curling into a ball, its bright pink tongue darting out to lick her hands. 

“I’m not keeping you,” Tess told the puppy. “I’m just not about to let you die out here in the rain.”

The puppy just let out a gusty sigh, closing its eyes and promptly falling asleep in her hands. 

“I’m not keeping you,” Tess repeated, but she had a feeling she wasn’t fooling anyone. Least of all, herself.


	5. Tess/Lois - meeting on a bus

The bus was standing room only. 

Tess wasn’t normally claustrophobic, but she was pretty sure that having this many people crammed in one vehicle was in violation of some kind of fire code. She tried to stay near the front of the bus, but with each stop, more and more people got on, forcing her slowly through the crowd toward the back. She finally found a small pocket of space by the back door, holding onto the strap hanging from the ceiling and planting her feet to keep her balance as the bus swayed down the street. 

And then the driver took a sharp corner on two wheels, making Tess lose her grip on the strap and dumping her straight into the lap of the person nearest to her. Tess froze in horror, very carefully not looking at the young woman she was currently sitting on. 

“Um-”

“Do you always fall for people when you first meet them?” the woman teased. 

“No, just you,” Tess replied, and the woman chuckled. 

“Well, aren’t I lucky, then?” she said, and when Tess risked a glance up, the woman was smiling. “Does that luck extend to you having coffee with me, later?”

“Only if you tell me your name,” Tess retorted. “I don’t go on dates with strangers.”

“Oh, now it’s a date?” The woman laughed, again. “I’m Lois. Lois Lane.”


	6. Tess/Lois - coffeeshop AU

“I need you in Smallville.”

Tess stared down at her phone in disbelief as Lex hung up without even waiting for her reply. 

“What the hell’s in Smallville?”

* * *

Nothing. Absolutely _nothing_ was in Smallville. Corn, more corn, so much corn…okay, so there was a downtown of sorts on Main Street. But it consisted of half a dozen shops and an old movie theater. Hardly anything compared to the hustle and bustle of Metropolis. 

And she was stuck here until Lex finished just whatever it was he was doing in the middle of nowhere. 

When her phone trilled at her, she snapped it open with a brisk, “Hello?”

“I want coffee,” Lex snapped, without preamble. 

“You don’t pay me seventy grand a year to get you coffee,” Tess told him. “LuthorCorp has interns; use one of them.”

“You’re already out,” Lex replied, and Tess rolled her eyes. 

“In case you haven’t noticed,” she said, “Podunk doesn’t exactly have a Starbucks on the corner.”

“There’s the Talon,” Lex said. 

“The theater?” Tess asked, confused. 

“It’s a coffee shop,” Lex told her, and then he hung up without another word. 

Not that he needed to say anything else, because he was the boss, and his word was law, and if he wanted Tess to get him coffee…well, looked like she was running coffee, today.

* * *

For a small town, the Talon was a surprisingly busy place. Most of the tables were full, there was a long line at the counter, and the single barista working the machines was moving like a whirlwind to keep everything moving smoothly. 

Tess got to the front of the line faster than she expected, and she rattled Lex’s usual order quickly. The coffee was placed on the counter in front of her in less than a minute. Tess gave it a test sip to make sure it was perfect; there’d be hell to pay otherwise, and then slapped a couple bills down on the counter. 

“Keep the change,” she said, turning toward the door. 

“Nothing for you?” the barista asked, and Tess paused. 

“What makes you think this isn’t mine?” she asked, curiously. 

“That’s Lex Luthor’s usual order,” the other woman told her. “You know how many LuthorCorp employees have come back in here in tears because they screwed up the first time? You’re the first one to get it right on the first try.”

“If you figured out that they were ordering the wrong thing,” Tess asked, “why didn’t you save them the trouble and tell them the right order?”

“I did. They didn’t listen.” The barista drummed her fingers on the counter. “So, you getting anything?”

“I-” Tess went blank as she looked up at the menu board. “Um, surprise me.”

“One Lois Special coming right up,” and Tess was about to ask who ‘Lois’ was when she saw the name tag on the woman’s chest. 

“So, what’s a Lois Special?” she asked instead, when a cup was placed in front of her. 

“Hot chocolate with cinnamon,” Lois said, proudly, grinning from ear to ear. Then her smile faltered when she asked, “Um, you’re not allergic to anything, are you?”

“No, I’m good,” Tess reassured her, taking a sip of the hot chocolate. “Oh, wow,” she breathed, taking a larger drink. “This is really good.”

“Glad you like it,” Lois said, smiling again. “So, will you be coming back for tomorrow’s coffee run?”

“Are you and your hot chocolate going to be here?” Tess asked, and Lois chuckled. 

“Count on it,” she said. 

“Then I’ll see you, tomorrow,” Tess told her.

Maybe there was something good in Smallville, after all.


	7. Tess/Lois - dating the ex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Loosely inspired by this prompt from Tumblr: you found me drunk and crying in a bathroom bc my ex dumped me and then you brought me to a taxi and insisted to give me your number so you’d know that i got home safe and then we start texting a lot AU

Tess really should have expected it. She and Oliver had broken up, after all, and it was ridiculous to expect him not to be seeing anyone else. She just hadn’t expected the other woman to be so beautiful, all long legs and dark, gorgeous hair. And Oliver looked happy in a way he never had with her, smiling and laughing, and it had been like a kick in the stomach seeing them together. 

And then Oliver had looked over in her direction, and Tess had bolted before he could see her. Lex’s stupid gala be damned; she wasn’t coming out of this bathroom until the party was over. Hell, maybe she wasn’t ever coming out of this bathroom-

“Hey, are you okay in there?”

-Unless someone heard her crying in the bathroom stall. 

“I’m fine,” Tess said, praying the other woman would take the hint.

“You sound like you’re crying.”

Thank you, Captain Obvious. “I’m fine,” Tess tried again, but even she wasn’t convinced when she heard the hitch in her own voice. 

There was a long silence, and then, “You wanna talk about it?”

“My stupid ex brought his new girlfriend to the gala,” Tess said, and it was honestly surprising how good saying those words out loud made her feel.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said, sympathetically. “That sucks.”

“I hate him so much right now,” Tess continued, letting some of her anger bleed into her voice. “We only broke up last week, and he’s already dating someone, and she’s beautiful, and she’s probably some rich socialite, because that’s just Oliver’s type-”

Tess broke off as she pushed open the stall door to see Oliver’s new girlfriend standing on the other side. “Oh, shit.”

“Lois Lane,” the other woman introduced herself, holding out a hand for Tess to shake. “Not a rich socialite, sadly, but I’m flattered that you think I’m beautiful.”

“Fuck,” Tess muttered, her face blazing hot.

“So, you must be the infamous Tess,” Lois started, but then she frowned, thoughtfully. “Wait a minute, did you say that you broke up last week?” When Tess nodded, Lois scowled. “Excuse me a minute.”

Tess watched, stunned, as Lois pulled her cell phone out of her small purse, dialing a number and impatiently tapping her foot on the floor as she waited for whoever it was to pick up. Then, “Ollie? Did you invite me to this thing when you knew that your ex-girlfriend was going to be here?”

Oliver said something and Lois hummed softly in response, and then, “No, I don’t care what your intentions were, that’s not appropriate.” More from Oliver, but Lois cut him off after a second. “Ollie, shut up. I’m talking now. Tess and I are going to take your limo out on the town, and we’re gonna go out drinking, and we’re gonna have a girl’s night out. On your credit card. And you can fend off greedy investors all on your own. Got it?”

Clearly satisfied with Oliver’s answer, Lois hung up her cell phone and dumped it back in her purse. “I’m not so much Ollie’s girlfriend as I am a human shield,” she explained. “And frankly I’m a little tired of it. What do you say we go somewhere and have an Oliver Queen-inspired bitchfest?”

“I think I’d like that,” Tess confessed.


End file.
